


Monster

by randomcheeses



Series: What if? [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Drama, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-16
Updated: 2010-07-16
Packaged: 2017-10-10 14:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomcheeses/pseuds/randomcheeses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lieutenant Colonel Mustang and his aide find a monster in Resembool</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monster

The smell of decaying flesh hit the young Lieutenant Colonel's nose like a hammer as he approached the door of the house. Behind him, his subordinate sniffed gingerly, a look of disgust appearing on her face.

"You can smell it too?" he asked.

"Yes," Hawkeye answered quietly. "Someone's dead in there."

The dark-haired alchemist nodded and then stepped forward and gave the door a determined shove. It slammed open and the outside sunlight filtered in, illuminating the room. The nauseating smell was far worse inside and the alchemist gagged and covered his mouth.

"Oh, hell," Roy whispered as he took in the sight of the room. The complex array, the misshapen blackened pile of flesh at its centre. The body of the child with an arm and part of a leg sheared off with brutal precision, cradled in the hands of an antique suit of armour soaked in the child's blood. The blood trail across the floor. The frozen terrified look somehow still evident on the boy's rotting face.

"The poor child," his lieutenant whispered as she walked forward into the room. "What happened here?"

"Human transmutation, from the look of that array," her superior half-snarled. The he let out a breath and ran a hand through his hair as he always did when something confused him. "But I don't understand. Whoever did this was trying to raise someone. Why kill a child? And why in such a terrible way? It wouldn't have taken long for him to bleed out, but cutting off someone's limbs isn't exactly easy. And why leave him posed like that? Why not bury him or hide any of the evidence?"

"Maybe they wanted it to be found?" Hawkeye suggested quietly.

Roy stared at the bizarre tableau, the way the mutilated child was held by the suit of armour as if the dead body was as precious as gold. His eyes watered from the gut-wrenching smell of decay and he blinked. Just for a second the armour's eyeholes flashed red, glowing like coals from a fire. Roy breathed as shallowly as he could and stepped closer. He crouched down, watching the armour carefully. But no, the eyeholes were blank and dark. It had just been a trick of the light, he decided.

"What kind of sick monster would _want _people to see this?" he growled. He coughed as he accidentally took a deep breath of the fetid air, tasting the stink of dried blood and bodily decay. For a moment, he was back in another place that had been stained with blood and death, quickly burned away by the sun and sand. Rage rose within him as he stared at the dead child, it's mouth still open in pain, the clouded golden eyes wide with horror.

Roy rose, sickened and enraged, and strode out of the house with Hawkeye following close behind him. A few feet from the door, he fell to his knees, retching on the grass. The rotting child's horrified expression flickered in his mind and his stomach heaved until it hurt to breathe.

"Why?" he murmured to himself, rage rising as Hawkeye hauled him upwards, speaking quietly, encouraging him to take things slowly. "Why would someone do that to a child? It couldn't have helped the array, what was the point? What was the damn _point?"_

"Sir," Hawkeye said a tremor in her normally unshakeable voice, "please, be calm. You need to decide what to do now."

Roy blinked, his vision still clouded by revulsion and rage. He turned to look at the house, the cheerful whitewashed front concealing the horror within. There was only one answer his rage-fogged mind could think of.

He threw out his hand and snapped. The house burst into flames. In minutes it was nothing but a smoking ruin, the grotesque contents burned to ashes.

"Sir, stop," Hawkeye said carefully, laying her hand on top of his and lowering it, "you've just destroyed evidence of a crime."

"Oh . . . shit," Roy muttered as the red rage receded and his head cleared. "Shit. That was stupid. I-"

His words were cut off by the sound of something stirring in the blackened wreckage of the house. Debris shifted and fell to the ground as a huge figure rose and pushed it to the side. Both soldiers' mouth dropped open in horrified astonishment.

The suit of armour, blackened from the fire and half melted in places, was trudging towards them. The remains of the dead boy's skeleton, scoured of flesh by the Flame Alchemist's fire, was still cradled in it's arms. The eyeholes of it's helm were lit with unearthly red light, glowing with fury as it walked slowly towards them. Roy snapped his fingers, surrounding the armour in a pillar of fire. Still it trudged forward, little slivers of melting metal running from the eyeholes of the armour, giving it the chilling appearance of a man in tears.

But it was not a man's voice that echoed from the suit as the blonde lieutenant unloaded her gun at it.

"You burned my Brother!" a child wailed, it's voice echoing and metallic. "You burned Brother! You burned my Brother!"

The soldiers backed away from the armour as it continued to wail and walk towards them, the skeleton in it's hands slowly falling apart.

"What kind of alchemy is this?" Lieutenant Hawkeye demanded, a horrified edge in her voice as she fired at the metal man. The sound of the bullets echoed oddly, as if the armour was hollow inside.

"I don't know," Roy answered her as he snapped his fingers again, causing more the armour to glow with heat. "But the sooner it's destroyed, the better."

He gave one more decisive snap of his fingers. Power rushed through the array and expanded the spark created by his gloves. The armour was bathed in a pillar of blue flame, melting like snow under the sun. The wailing stopped and the metal suit collapsed onto the ground.

Hawkeye shuddered. "What kind of madman would create that thing?" she wondered.


End file.
